


Is a Life Without Color One Worth Living

by Black-Butterfly (wibblywobblytime77)



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Addiction, Aftermath of Drug Addiction, Angst, Artist!Gerard - Freeform, Color, Drug Use, Gen, Monochrome, Second Person, heavily metaphoric, seriously this is like the best thing I've ever written, you are in his mind here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 07:49:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6558283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wibblywobblytime77/pseuds/Black-Butterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a time drugs can make the world new again in bright hues dancing before your eyes and mind. The garish intensity blinds you to the truth of their nature. The danger that lurks behind the brightness, the pit waiting to swallow you and the chemical you've trusted handing you your very own shovel to dig the hole deeper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Is a Life Without Color One Worth Living

It's something that sneaks up on you. The idea that if you do this one thing, maybe simple maybe not, that the world will be good again. That things will be as they were when the world seemed like a nice place exist and life was happy and not yet filled with monochromes. When there were still days that all you could focus on was the itch that drove you to create. To capture the world on paper or canvas. It's usually a simple concept that turns out to not be so simple in practice. Destructively simple. Deceptively simple. Just take this pill, just don't eat, just drink this. Disastrously simple.

For a time drugs can make the world new again in bright hues dancing before your eyes and mind. The garish intensity blinds you to the truth of their nature. The danger that lurks behind the brightness, the pit waiting to swallow you and the chemical you've trusted handing you your very own shovel to dig the hole deeper. But why should you care, they've returned your chroma and through that particular lens you may pretend for some time that all is as it should be. You can ignore the worried eyes cast in your direction and the caution dripping from the mouths of friends and family. It's all lost to the vibrancy of their irises and the teal you hear on their tongues.

All too quickly though the monochromes return, seeping back into the picture with a voracious appetite that only devours more and more of the scenery the harder you try to slow it. The more drugs the faster it goes until you know that the race is futile and the color will not return no matter the amount of chemicals you pour into your ragged, weary body. You begin to loose hope that they will return naturally what with the damage that's been done and then what is even the point of stopping the drugs. They are what brought back the colors anyway.

You then begin to realize that maybe, just maybe you should attempt to dig yourself out of the pit you've created in a colorless world. Maybe when you climb out the view will have improved some and things will be, not good necessarily, but possibly better than when you last saw it.

Of course then the pain that comes with climbing out is awful and jagged and you begin to doubt. Was the color even worth it in the first place? Isn't the whole world just more of the pit anyway? Maybe this isn't such a splendid idea as it seemed. Color has become the fantasy and the reality is grey even though you are sure at one point color had been something taken for granted. You don't know. But you are mildly convinced that things will be different outside the hole. Hope is the only thing you have left, even if it is likely as dangerous as the chemicals that got you here.

You cling to the idea that maybe out in the sunlight color will come back to your mind and to your vision. Once again you try to leave the endless hole you have sunk even deeper into. It hurts still and you know it will for a while, probably even after you get out but this time you are prepared for it. Prepared for the torment ahead. Prepared for the pain. The long journey of earthen walls riddled with jagged glass and rusted metal will mean something if you can just make it through. It has to.

With every step and every pull heavenward the shards slice your palms and catch on your filthy clothes and puncture your soles. They cut to the bone but you know you must suffer to succeed. You leave a trail of black blood behind you that you hope will be the mark of a successful climb if you can just push onward through the pain and come out on top. After what seems to be years of this self imposed torture your ruined hand touches something soft. Grass. You've made it out of the hole. But the grass that should be a comfort hurts nearly as bad as the jagged walls of your pit. It digs into old wounds and starts them bleeding again but it's a beautiful pain. Beautiful because it means you're alive and you've survived your own personal hell.

For the first in a long time you open your eyes and see color. It's faint and delicate. Tenuous and barely clinging to things like it doesn't quite remember how to exist for you. Warm tears drip into cupped palms and you fear closing your eyes because it's been so long you'd worried chroma was a bedtime story told to children to help them sleep. The salt burns. You swear to do anything to keep even this trace. You assure yourself this promise will be enough. You smile and go through the motions and your gaping wounds scab along the edges. Every time you close your eyes you are scared to open them for the fear of the gray. The faint colors are always there though and they are a reassurance that there is hope, dangerous and fragile though it may be. There is potential for a future for you yet. You wonder if that whispered promise will always be as satisfying as it seems now.

It nearly is. Still, you feel the loss of vibrance when walking in the world and those wisps begin to hurt. The sky is still not the blue you long for and remember, art lacks life, smiles fall before reaching eyes. Slowly but surely, every time you blink you start to dread opening your eyes because it reminds you that even your uphill battle has not been enough. Even with your hard won color the world is still dull and desaturated. Even the once comforting pastels have become a weapon. You know you should be grateful that you see even the faintest color. For so long you thought the world would always be monochrome. It's hard though when that victory hurts nearly as much as the loss. It just reminds you more of what you are missing and you long for even the fake vitality the chemicals brought.

More and more your idle thoughts turn towards a certain alley where a woman with a bag of death promises to return your colors. If only for now. You know it won't be worth it, won't be worth the pit and inevitable black and white to follow. You know this with an unshakable certainty. But still. The rainbow calls louder than ever and just facing the world gets harder every day.

You can't remember the last time your fingers itched for a pencil or brush. The desire to cage the world in graphite or pigment faded with the colors. You think maybe. Maybe if the itch could be reawakened so too will the color because now that you think about it the two could be linked. You scrabble through dusty desk drawers with rusty runners in search of your long disused prey. It has got to be here. You swear you remember it from a time before the pit, before the deep spiritual scars you now carry from that battle. You tear loose sheets of curled paper from the rattling creaking drawer and under them, at long last is what you've been searching for.

The pencil feels awkward in your hand, like the hug of a mostly forgotten relative. The first line is too dark and too thick and too jagged to be worth anything but the next is better. The one after that is better still. You feel a slight tingle that could be your imagination. You ignore it. You continue to ignore when your wounds begin to heal and scar and maybe, just maybe, fade.

An indeterminate period of time later when the pencil has again become a part of you and the lines are coming fast and easy, the tingle returns and this time there is no mistaking it. You'd know this feeling anywhere and you want to weep with the pleasure pain of the memories it carries. The itch to create is returning to you and you think maybe the pale pink of the flower you are drawing may have become a bit less pale. You smile and it doesn't feel like breaking glass.


End file.
